|
MEAT BAITS
At the turn of the century the angling press was astonished by the report of a man who had caught a fish on a sausage out of his lunch pack. It was, the experts said, an exceptional occurrence. There was only one bait in use at that time that had any association with meat, and that was greaves, a waste product of tallow obtained from candle manufacturers and used both as hook and groundbait at Thames weirpools to catch barbel.
Today, meat baits (pure meat and not merely by-products) are common, and barbel, roach, bream, chub, tench and carp are regularly caught on them throughout the year. much of the present day angler's success is the result of the modern preparation of meat products which are packed with a consistency that not only allows easy mounting on the hook, but also a slow breakdown in the water allowing a flavour and smell to remain around the lure.
LUNCHEONMEAT
This is the best known and most used of the meat baits. The tinned types are easily carried and provide a hefty chunk of meat from which substantial sized cubes can be cut. Blind buying of the first tin on the shelf is not advised. There are many cheap varieties of luncheonmeat which have a very high fat content, and this means a soft cube of hookbait that will either break away from the hook during the cast, or fall apart within a few minutes of lying in the water, especially if the swim lies in fast water
A few extra pence will buy a good meat mix that should be kept refrigerated until required, and kept as cool as possible while the angler is fishing. Once the tin is opened, keep the contents out of the sun and packed away in an air tight box.
REMEMBER Never take tins to the waterside, always dispose of them properly at home.
CORNED BEEF
Corned beef can be 'flaked' then mashed into a cereal base to provide a taint to the whole hookbait. Ideally the mixing should be done on the day you fish, in order to avoid the bait becoming rancid. In recent years, a number of cereal mixes with dried meat in them have appeared on the market as dog foods. These are cheap and effective and need only to be soaked overnight before use. Keep moist at the bank, this bait will sink naturally and is particularly useful for swimfeeder work.
OTHER MEATS
Sausage meat is another excellent meat bait, which is extremely versatile when mixed with other ingredients and flavours. It should be stiffened with breadcrumbs or better still with sausage rusk, until it assumes the consistency of putty. Another deadly variety is sausage meat mixed with rusk and soft cheese with a little plain flour to harden the balls once they have been shaped into bait sized pieces.
Tinned pet food especially cat foods with a high proportion of fish in their ingredients, hit the headlines a few years ago as a deadly carp bait. Preparation of the bait for the hook is messy and requires a little trouble, but results are usually worth the effort. This should be done immediately prior to going fishing. Hook sized lumps should be moulded and dipped into boiling water to form a hard glaze over the surface which helps hold them in place during the cast.
Pork rind has been vogue for some years now in America. The strips are hooked into the treble of a spinning lure, and it is claimed that baits treated with this addition of two or three worm-like strands really tempt the big fish. The other way of using bacon strips is to hook mount them as you would a worm, on a single large hook, and slowly reel this without a float and with a minimum of weight through areas where predators are found.
HOOKING MEAT
Mounting cubes of bait on the hook requires care. Choose a hook too big rather than too small an push the point of the hook slowly into the centre of the cube before threading it round onto the bend, making sure that the point of the hook is clear.
TIP - A piece of leaf or a blade of grass pushed between the bait and the bend of the hook will help prevent the bait flying off on the cast.
WHERE TO FISH MEAT
Meat has a better chance of success in waters where it has been accepted for a number of years, and some species take it more willingly than others. Probably the natural place to use it is when fishing for chub and barbel in a weirpool, where luncheonmeat is best.
A solitary piece flung just anywhere into the pool and left is hardly likely to be effective. Back it up with the use of groundbait. Fast water that washes away free offerings or bait from the hook is a dead loss.
Other places where meat will often do well is above the weir, where the river and navigation channel divide, producing deep water under the rod, and where erosion has taken a bank away, leaving a deep cut and slow flow. Lock cuttings are worth a try, but there is always a risk of too much attention from eels, especially in autumn.
Other natural places to try are near boatyards and moored boats, as well as the usual natural features of overhanging trees and bushes.
|
